The Cavs: Hopefully making your monday less bleak.

-The trade Lee/Battie/Skip for VC is a steal. When you’re a contending team, the objective is always to come away with the best player in the deal. Also, there’s no such thing as a team with championship talent that shouldn’t be in win-now mode in the NBA. Windows are small in the NBA, no matter who you are. If it’s not guys getting old, it’s injuries or contracts running out, or just the wrong group of role players going out or in around the core. There is no next year if a team is good enough to win a championship.

Lee’s going to be a solid shooting guard for almost a decade, Battie is what he is, and Rafer can acquit himself nicely as a guard. But with Rafer not starting, this was a no-brainer for the Magic talent-wise.

The real question becomes this: is the de facto trade of Carter for Turkoglu a good one for the Magic? (Now, I’m not close to the situation and have no idea if the Magic would have been able to retain Hedo if they had not traded for Vince, or even if they still can. I’m not trying to figure out if the Magic front office screwed up; I’m trying to figure out if the Magic will be better or worse with VC filling Turkoglu’s role next season.)

-Unfortunately, there are more questions than answers with this trade.

-Question #1: Did Hedo make the Magic offense go to a much, much greater degree than his numbers suggest?

During the Magic’s series with the Cavaliers, Hedo certainly seemed like the head of the snake for the Magic offensively. He was the guy running the pick-and-rolls, making the entry passes, getting the ball in ISO when the offense broke down.

In Arnovitz’s ClipperBlog post today, he gets into one of the fundamental issues of modern basketball, and one of the two or three main issues that makes APBRmetrics so much murkier than sabermetrics. Simply put, some guys create shots and plays offensively while other guys finish them.

What made the Magic so special in the ECF was that they had 4 guys surrounding Howard who were ready to create a play or finish a play at any given time given the circumstances. But in that Magic lineup, Hedo was really the only true creator-Lewis is really a shooter, Lee is a guy who can finish inside if there’s an open lane or make a spot-up shot, Howard is obviously a finisher, and Rafer’s a scoring guard.

As has been discussed endlessly on this blog, the Magic were not bracket-busters tossing up a ton of contested threes and hoping enough would fall. The Magic were doing something pretty special offensively in terms of how well they were moving the ball, spacing the floor, and punishing late rotations. A big part of that was that the Cavs couldn’t cover Howard straight-up, no doubt. But the movement on the perimeter to punish the double-teams is what really killed the Cavs, and that movement was due in large part to how well the Magic played off of Hedo’s wonky point-forward rhythms, like the Rolling Stones playing off of Keith Richards’ timing rather than the drummer’s.

In the playoffs, Hedo was the guy putting together double-digit assist games, and only a third of his shots were assisted by somebody else. On paper, Hedo’s production seems very replaceable, both in terms of output and in efficiency. But like Baron Davis with the Warriors, when that team was at its best Hedo was the one making them go. I could be over-thinking this one, but my worry is that the Magic may have tried to tinker with a very delicate and intricate offensive chemistry by removing Hedo.

Question #2: Does Jameer coming back make losing Hedo’s playmaking a moot point?

Short answer: I have no idea. Jameer was a perfectly serviceable starting point guard until last season, when he suddenly became an absolute scoring beast, the best outside shooter in basketball, as well as a freaky late-game assassin. Then he had a major bicep injury and played limited minutes in the finals. Will he be all the way healthy? Will he be more of a scorer than a playmaker? Will his playmaking from the 1 spot work as well as Hedo’s did from the 3 spot? I have nothing approximating a clue.

(Sidebar: reading back over that testicle dance piece, I decided to give this 82games “last shot” piece yet another read. Paul Pierce was the best assist man in “last shot” situations in the regular season by a significant margin. That came into play in these playoffs, huh?)

Question #3: Who is Vince Carter, really?

He’s been the savior of basketball, a go-to scorer with scary, scary athletic ability and a competent outside shot, a soft me-first player who didn’t really care and settled for jumpers, Jason Kidd’s competent running mate who ran the floor, cut for open lanes, and took open jumpers, and then played essentially the same role with Devin Harris for the last year and a half.

On paper, he’s no worse of a playmaker than Hedo was, but the last time Vince was a featured playmaker he was flying over and around people in Canada. And to compound things, he hasn’t been on a legitimate NBA contender since the day he graduated from college. I think Vince can handle a tough crowd, but it’s been a while since he’s had the car keys on a deep poised to make a deep playoff run.

Here is, I suppose, my bottom line on this: The Magic are/were amazing because they have the most consistently amazing offensive and defensive system in the league. If the system makes the players, than this was a great trade, as there are almost no areas where Hedo out-performs Vince on paper. But if Hedo somehow played an integral part in making that system works and the Magic lose what made them special against the Cavs because of his loss, than they may have serious problems.

15 Responses to “The Cavs: Hopefully making your monday less bleak.”

I agree that getting VC for Battie, Lee, and Alston is a steal, but in reality, isn’t Orlando actually trading Battie, Lee, Alston, AND Turkoglu for Carter? Granted, I have no idea if they could have kept Hedo around if the trade didn’t go down, but even if Vince and Hedo are roughly a wash, the Magic are still down a starting 3 and two rotation-quality bench guys. This might be a rare instance where both teams are going to come out worse talent-wise.

The trade will not make ORL as deadly – not vs. the Cavs anyway – as they were last year. Hedo made that thing tick. The Magic must have thought they were going to lose Hedo anyway, b/c it doesn’t make much sense if you thought you could keep him if you didn’t go for VC.

VC is a nice player for sure, but he has to have the ball in his hands and needs lots of shots the vast majority of nights to be up big numbers. Thank you very much, Otis Smith

If Hedo is gone, I don’t see how this trade makes them better. My initial reaction to this trade was scared that the Magic were getting another All-Star, but after I let it sit, it actually made me pretty happy. I always hated Hedo, even before this season, in much the same way I hated Jordan in back in the day, because of the immense respect I had for what he did for his team. I will be glad if he is not there to run the offense next year.

I tend think VC’s best days are probably behind him, and I always cringed whenever the Cavs were mentioned to be in trade rumors about him. As mentioned, he’s never had to run a real contender, and he tends to get to shot-happy, which will hinder the quality touches Dwight Howard gets. Furthermore, I thought Courtney Lee became a hell of a player after less than a full year starting in the league, especially his defense and making some key shots. I will not miss seeing him in the playoffs next year (if that happens) with another year of experience under his belt.

I think the Magic got better as a team, but at the expense of their matchup advantages versus the other elite teams in the East. The biggest advantage the Magic had was their size on the perimeter, but losing Turkoglu removes that entirely. They also traded an unselfish spot up shooter, and a rookie, in Lee for an acrobatic gunner in Carter who shoots in the 44% range despite playing above the rim a lot. With Carter replacing Turkoglu and Lee, I think the Magic will win more regular season games, but won’t advance past the second round of the playoffs for the next few years.

The Magic also got Ryan Anderson in the trade, a 21 year-old big man who should fit into the Magic’s system well. As a Magic fan, I am still skeptical of the trade. This only works if Lee, being a 23 year-old entering the league after 4 years of starting in college, is closer to his ceiling than I think he is and if Jameer Nelson comes back to the way he was playing at the beginning. Vince had an All-Star caliber year this year (certainly more deserving than Mo Williams), but he’s 32. Hedo overall had a down year compared to last year, and even in the playoffs he was inconsistent. I’d love to keep him still, but he’s not worth $10 million a year, VC trade or no VC trade. There are still a lot of moves to be made by both the Cavs and Magic, so let’s hold off on the thanking opposing team’s GM’s till training camp.

Note to John: Jameer’s injury was his labrum (rotator cuff), not his biceps.

As a magic fan, I can say that the trade of: Hedo, Battie, Rafer, and Lee for VC and Anderson is not the right way to look at it. Even if the VC trade upped our cap by about 3.5-4 million, that still leaves about 6 million left to play with. That six million definitely lets the magic sign a brandon bass or a rasheed wallace. If its Bass, they are also able to sign someone else with the remaining 3-4 million. So if you want to add in Hedo, add in the other FA we are going to get, like Rasheed, or Bass, or McDyess etc.

again, because you, john, seem unwilling to say it: the magic won by shooting above their season avg. in 3 pointers AND howard shooting WELL above his season avg. from the the FT line. and with that, the magic’s margin of victory over the cavs was still only 2.5 points per game. they won by fluke. fluke is something that happens outside the statistical norm. look at what happened when the magic and howard shot near their season averages against the lakers! a fairly convincing series win for LA.

but to the point of this trade. the cavs have NO PROBLEM guarding VC with delonte but they had NO ONE to effectively guard hedo and as i showed earlier, orlando still barely won the series. the cavs, at this point, are clearly the favs in the eastern conference for the upcoming season.

KJ-I think I’ve been pretty clear on-record as saying that the Cavs definitely could have won the Magic series had a few breaks gone their way, and didn’t need any fundamental team changes to get past them; I tend to focus on the Rashard threes in games 1 and 4.

I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a “fluke,” though: the Magic’s 3-point percentage was certainly extremely high, but the Magic enjoyed looks much better than their usual ones because the Cavs couldn’t cover Howard straight-up inside and the Magic did a fantastic job of moving the ball.

Howard’s free-throws were certainly a little luckier, but that’s why you play the games, right? We’re not probability students, we’re sports fans. The breaks went the Magic’s way in their series against us and the Lakers’ way in their series against the Magic, but at the end of the day the Lakers have the bigger trophy, the Magic have a smaller one, and we have a banner.

Win or lose, the Cavaliers showed weak points in the ECF that the Magic exploited, and shoring those up would be a priority for the Cavs regardless of the outcome. And to write like the Cavs didn’t lose the series would be disingenuous; the focus of off-season moves shouldn’t be how the Cavs could’ve won the last series, but how they will or won’t win the next one.

And yes, without Turkoglu the Cavs become my favorites to come out of the East next year, but there’s a lot of basketball to be played, obviously.

This trade definitely makes me less scared of the Magic next year, assuming Hedo doesn’t come back. For the way the Magic play, Hedo + Courtney Lee is more valuable than Vince Carter + no one. And I’m a big fan of Vince Carter — I remain pretty scared of him going off on us. But factoring in age and familiarity with the system, he’s not a huge upgrade over Hedo, and as someone else said he’s a more favorable matchup for Delonte.

And Courtney Lee was the perfect role player for that team. I am thrilled not to be facing the Magic with him after he makes the typical rookie-to-sophomore leap. But mostly this hurts Orlando’s lineups. Without Lee, they still have Pietrus as a 4th shooter for the starting lineup. But who’s the first sub in? Their “small” lineup breaks down as soon as SVG goes to his bench. I expect that we’ll be seeing a lot more of Lewis at the 3, and more traditional 4’s, which would really take away some of their edge. (Is Ryan Anderson their answer to this problem? Sure he can shoot, but I doubt he can defend like Lee.)

I guess you do have to factor in Jameer Nelson coming back, and FA signings are still a possibility. So we’ll see.

“kj” fails to realize that there’s something called the law of averages. The Magic shot well below their 3-point % against Philly and Boston. Boston played better D than Philly, but there were still a ton of open shots they just missed. As John said, the Magic got a lot of open looks against Cleveland, but they also hit some shots they were missing the first 12 games of the playoffs (they finally came around in game 7 against Boston). To bring their average up, they made some hard 3’s (i.e. Rashard’s daggers and a lot of Pietrus’ crazed shots). Happens all the time. The Magic weren’t a 32% 3-point team like they were the first 2 rounds. The team that “lives and dies” by the 3 got through two rounds of the playoffs shooting like Josh Smith. The Cavs saw the team that could shoot 40-45% with a high volume of 3-point attempts.

The Magic won fair and square, just like the Lakers did. There were close games because it was the playoffs, but in both instances the better team won. Next year’s rosters will be different, so we’ll see who wins next year. Until then, no use crying over spilled milk.

The better team did not win. Which is the better team, well that would be indicated by the team who had the best record in the regular season. The Magic were simply a match-up nightmare for the Cavs and the fact that the law of averages (3 pointers) never caught up with them during the Cavs series showed greatly during the finals against the Lakers. With an average margin of vicory of 2.5 points is easy to see that is one less 3 pointer a game that would put the average in the Cavs favor. Don’t get me wrong I definitely think the Magic were the 3rd best team in the NBA last year above and beyond any other 4th team but it took bad match-ups, above average 3pt shooting, great play both from the field and the line from Howard, and an awful series by Williams and West for the Magic to barely win???

[…] It’s no longer merely a luxury; it’s a prerequisite for longterm success. On Monday, John Krolik of Cavs the Blog composed this pithy axiom: “Simply put, some guys create shots and plays offensively while other guys finish […]

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